Katie O'Hara LaBrie

Moonflower

Inspired by the night-blooming flower that unfurls in a single graceful arc, this lyrical grade 1 work is a beautiful introduction to slurs. Though based primarily in stepwise motion, and only using the notes of a one-octave D major scale, this piece will make young students sound more mature than they really are, or provide more advanced students with opportunities for phrasing and vibrato practice.



Note to the Director:



I wrote this piece specifically to introduce slurs. Most of the slurs are step-wise, rather than jumps, and they all remain on one string (with the exception of basses, who do have to cross strings on occasion from G to F#). I would encourage you to have the students warm-up by playing a half note D, followed by slurred quarters E to D (like the motive in m. 17 v1) just to work on the evenness of the slurs, while maintaining a long bow stroke. The piece is written entirely on the D and A string for ease of note reading, that way students can focus on the newer skills of slurs and enhancing the music with the dynamics. For added flexibility there is an optional open string part playable by violins or violas.